Truth Be Told..

The Misconception

There is only one more teaching that is even more dangerous than this one and that would be the teaching of the Trinity! The teaching of "once saved always saved" really happens to be another way of the ancient and the original lie satan told the world, we find it in Genesis 3:4: "thou shalt surely not die." as it leads one to believe that no matter what you do, you are saved by grace - through your faith and that at the end of the day, your sins are hidden in Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who came and died for our sins.

Folks, this all really sounds great and ohh...how nice it would be if it were true! I do not blame anyone for wanting to believe it was that simple. Lets take a deep breath though and really look into this because according to what we just read in Genesis; God gave man (Adam and Eve) ONE commandment, which they broke. We find out how evil man became without the love of God instilled in their hearts - do not ever forget how our God, our Heavenly Father actually regretted creating mankind due to the amount of evil we were and still are capable of! Can we really be so diluted to believe that somehow, over time - God has become more lighter in the way He considers acts of evil and sin? Can we really allow ourselves the luxury of believing that we can do as we please and at the end of our journey, still hear the words: "welcome My faithful servant?"

In my opinion, the teaching of "once saved always saved" is really the effectual belief in yet another ancient lie that satan uses to allow us to justify our own actions in our own minds; and that lie would be "its no big deal." I don't know about any of you brothers or sisters; but I personally have gone through that door! I most assuredly bit on that bait when there was something that I really wanted to do but knew it was wrong! I can still hear the "gateway" lie in my head - it starts with "oh, its not a big deal" then it goes to "Its just (fill in the blank)" and from there it goes to "God will forgive you, He says He will" and by then, justification has been created! I do not know about any of you, but I somehow hear the echo of Aleister Crowley in my head whispering in a slithering way "do as thou wilt, is the whole of the law!"

What We Know About God

Lets take what we know and say about God: We all agree that He is the same today as He was yesterday, we say that He never makes an empty promise nor does He ever break a promise He makes, we know that God does not force Himself on anyone, that we all have free will, and we also know that God hates ALL sin. Agreed? Great, so lets dig in!

In establishing the way of God, we go to the Old Testament as that is where we will find God asserting His ways onto the peoples of that time. So, what can we say about God in the Old Testament? It will become very clear very quickly that the people of that day had interaction with God directly through various avenues such as appearing as a cloud, or a burning bush, and even in dreams through His angels. So it becomes obvious to us that the people of that time had absolutely no problem with their belief in Gods existance. However, we can also see from the story of Exodus that there was a very big problem with people of that time period to be obedient to God; and what did God do to these people? Did He not destroy them?

Common Sense Approach

Some mornings while I am reading I start to think about the Bible itself. I think about who would read this book. The answer is very simple; it is mostly believers - both old and new read this book. Sure, we have the non-believers who also read this book for various reasons; but mostly it is believers. So with that in mind, what would you say is the number one purpose of our Bibles? Would it not be to learn how to be pleasing to God? To let us know what is expected of us as His children? To help us figure out what He likes and does not like?

I found after reading through the Bible from beginning to end several times that it is a book full of advice and warnings. Keeping in mind that it is mostly believers that read the Bible, a question quickly arises - "if we are all saved upon acceptance of Jesus, then how come we have a book with thousands of pages of DO's and DONTs?" There also remains the question of the missing conditions from the entire Bible such as: "unless you are a child of God" or "unless you have received the free gift of salvation" What I do see are very black and white statements that were made by our Lord Jesus Christ and very stark warnings from our God that are plain and cannot be miscontrued in anyway unless you are wanting to have your ears tickled!

What The Bible Says

What do I mean? Lets take a look at 1 Corinthians 6:9 & 10 9. "Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God's Kingdom? Do not be misled. Those who are sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who submit to homosexual acts, men who practice homosexuality, 10. thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners will not inherit God's Kingdom.

Oh man, that list we just went through most assuredly mentions a whole whack of people! It sure is a good thing that we USED to do some of those things - but we do not do them anymore, right? Anyway, I know there is more to this passage, but at the moment I want you to only focus on the example statement because these warnings and more just like it are repeated throughout the whole of the New Testament and we will uncover more as we go along. What I wanted you to see is there are no "condtions" attached! I also want to point out that these same warnings are found in writing after Jesus ascended back up to His heavenly realm; for those that would like to say these warnings were before Jesus came and died for us. That I am only using this one list of dont's as my example because it was the first one I came to when writing this article. Lets look at another one:

In Hebrews 6:26-31 we find a very plain, black and white statement that should be enough for anyone to pause and think! 26. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27. but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. 28. Anyone who has ignored the Law of Moses is put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29. How much more severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30. For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." 31. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

If we sit back and look at this scripture, breaking it down we immediately see that it does not say "UNLESS YOU BELIEVE IN THE SON OF GOD." There are no exceptions listed! We also cannot ignore that God has stated HIS PEOPLE will be judged. But even more than that - the words of warning: "insulting the spirit of grace" is horrifying. Brothers and sisters, what do we expect? Look deep in your hearts and think for a minute: what if you had a friend or a loved one that continually did the very things you HATE, things they KNOW you do not like? You, being a good hearted person will be patient for a bit of time, but at some point a question of being taken advantage of surely will enter your brain! I know that God is much more patient than we humans are (Thank Him!) - but even He, Himself, grows tired of disobedience as we found out through the flood and through the story of Exodus! Trying the spiirit of His grace is not something we should be doing!

Now I can hear my brothers and sisters saying: "We are saved by grace through faith, not by works" and this is a true statement, we RECEIVED the gift of salvation without ANY works at all but based on our faith in Jesus and it was given by the the grace of God. We must understand there is nothing that can ever undo that statement, but now that you received it: can you keep it!? LOL, now I can really hear my brothers and sisters screaming "We are forgiven through the blood of the only begotten Son Of God, Jesus Christ"

Lets pause here for a few minutes and re-read the above verses again! We are told in Hebrews that if we willingly and knowingly continue to do what we know is wrong, the sacrifice of Jesus's blood will no longer cover us (in laymens terms). To be totally clear, I agree that salvation is a free gift that is offered to us by God Through the blood of Jesus, His Son. When we received salvation we were sinners and there was no good works in us - we did not receive salvation by works! What we did have was "faith" in God and in His Son. But now that we have taken the first step of the salvational plan - is that all that is expected of us? If I take a look around me at the many people in the world, I can most assuredly state in all honesty that there are a whole whack of people that claim they believe in The True Living God, yet Jesus claims in Matthew 7:13 & 14 the following statement: 13. "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Why do you think that is? There certainly does not seem to be a shortage of believers!

So what do I believe? I believe that in our adventures here on this earth in our life time - we are expected to do our best turning away from unrighteousness instead of trying to justify it, I believe that it takes a lifetime to work on our weaknesses and we will never get to the point where we will be perfect while we are in the flesh living in this beast system; however, that is not an excuse to quit trying. I believe what is told to us in Romans 2:5-7 which says: 5. But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6. who WILL REPAY EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: 7. to those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life; 8. but to those who are self-serving and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, He will give wrath and indignation. So, again I say salvation is not BASED on works (that was free) - there are some things that are indeed expected of us and we find these expectations in the following verses:

I WILL NOT LOSE ONE

I can hear my brothers and sisters quoting John 10:26 28. and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand."!! Let me be clear! This verse is very true and very comforting! However, lets remember something - "free will."

Do we not claim that God gave each and everyone of us free will? The freedom to make our own choices? Why do you think satan and his demons attack our minds? Is it because he knows that is where the justification process begins? That if he can somehow convince you that "this thing" you want to do is okay, that it is just a "one time deal" - so with this aspect presenting itself, is it reasonable to consider that we can make choices in our lives that will lead us further away from God? That maybe satan is worthy of his cunning title; and slowly, over time, because you believe that no matter what you do, you are saved - could he somehow use this ideology to subtly start working in your head in favor of a worldly view on something? We do realize that with each and every decision we make, by every action we perform; it is these that either put us closer to God or further away from Him. Most times, we do not even realize it because that butt munch, satan is so very cunning and has gotten us to justify our evil works in our own minds! The point I am trying to make you see here is that through deception and distraction - you can indeed start to make the slow subtle walk right out of Gods palm and it is in this way, Jesus did not lose you and no one plucked you out of His Fathers hand - you walked away on your own free will.

THERE IS HOPE

Anyway, If we continue to believe this deception, how can we honestly and confidently explain the warning that is put out by Jesus, found in Revelation 2:5, where He says to the angel of the Church of Ephesus: 5. Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent.

I want you to focus on this "lampstand" that is indeed removable from its place. If we take the whole passage in context, it should be very enlightening on a few of our statements, lets read from verses 2-4 it says: "'I know your deeds, and your labor and endurance, and that you cannot tolerate bad men, and that you put to the test those who say they are apostles, but they are not, and you found them to be liars. 3. You are also showing endurance, and you have persevered for the sake of my name and have not grown weary."

So, here is perseverance, endurance, good deeds - yet, unless this "church" repents AND does the deeds it had done at the beginning, their lampstand will be removed from its place. How can this be if the "once saved always saved" doctorine is true? In Revelation 3:11 we find this statement: "'I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown" Again, showing us that it is possible to lose your "crown" of life through our actions (or inaction)

Yes, there is hope through Jesus! We are told if we repent and turn from our ways, that we are forgiven. If there was ever a time to really understand what this statement means; it would be now. Repenting does not mean that we simply say we are sorry, as if we are apologizing to our partner for turning their laundry pink! It does not mean apologizing and then the very next day we do it again. This is serious business folks and re-read the Hebrews verses above! True repentance, TO ME means a deep heart felt grievance to the point where disgust or sorrow is at a level you hope you never experience again. It means in your heart you have absolutely no desire at all to ever repeat what you just did or said! It is through this heart-felt state that true change takes place and we are able to turn away from that in the future. Now please, do not get me wrong. There are some things in our lives that are deeply rooted and take time to change. Understand something! With God, all things are possible! It is not Him that is taking His sweet time instilling change in us - it is our stubborn, resistant nature that causes change to take place of decades! God does not need "time" to change us, He can do this in a blink - maybe we need to look inside of ourselves and find out what the hold up is?? Some stuff is hard to break for many reasons, we are most assuredly work in progress but we should never settle with that! We have a goal - the goal to conquer! :)

NO ONE CAN KEEP GODS COMMANDMENTS

Folks, do not go there. We have 10 commandments and while some of them are not easy to do - they are all capable of being done; lets just post the 10 commandments of God and lets see which one of these commandments are impossible to keep!

Did you know that 9 of these commandments are again repeated throughout the New Testament as well? Some people will try to justify breaking these commandments by saying that these were laws made in the days of the Old Testament and were crucified on the cross with Jesus, that they are not part of the new covenant. False! And in fact, we read Jesus telling us the following in Romans 13:9-10 9. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 10. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. So, while Jesus was trying to make us understand that if you truly love, all of the commandments would never be broken as the sheer act of genuine love will prevent us from doing any of these things. Here are just some of the ones I found in the New Testament; and I am sure any eager to please follower will find more yet!

Finishing Up

The once saved always saved indoctrination is by far destructive. Jesus tells us in John 5:3 - For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. In laymens terms? Jesus just told us to keep His Fathers commandments. That by doing this, we show we genuinely love God; Jesus also tells us that these commandments are not burdensome - in other words, we are expected to follow them! So, there goes the false statement of not being capable of keeping Gods commandments! We read all throughout the New Testament about rewards (i.e "blessed is the one who..", and "those who endure unto the end..") and punishments (i.e.."woe to those..", and "I shall judge My people") - I implore anyone that believes the "once saved always saved" doctrine to read what is written, what is consistent. To search your heart and ask yourself do you really believe that we can be pleasing to our God by being flagrant and disobedient? or can we expect to find a Heavenly Father that is disappointed in this mentality.